Old Friends and Bookends
by 50ShadesofCray
Summary: It's been five years since the Sanctuary network retreated underground. It's also been five years since Helen Magnus last saw the pesky vampire that liked to drink her wine and harass her staff. On a trip above ground, Helen runs into him. This isn't just a chance meeting; she knows Nikola too well for that. What does he want? And, more importantly, does it involve (more) Bordeaux?
1. The Vampire Finds His Friend (Again)

**Author's Notes:** I've been writing some very not coherent drabbles lately. I'm in the process of looking for a job and it's been rather stressful, so I write whatever comes to mind to alleviate the insanity. The idea of this particular story came to me during class one night. I'm not sure if anyone still reads _Sanctuary_ fanfic anymore, but I just love that darn show. I want to warn you, though; this isn't going to be a highly polished pearl of literature (and not likely proofread). It will be fraught with pop culture references, irreverence, and highly unlikely situations. This is being written without the formality that I typically use when writing. Oh, a couple of warnings: 1) it should be relatively PG in ratings for things like language and innuendos related to the fact that Nikola wants Helen's body nearly every second he is awake (ratings subject to change at any time due to indecisive whimsy), and 2) this is a Nikola/Helen pairing. I'm not too sure how involved they're actually going to be, but I really haven't planned anything because planning feels too much like adulting and I ain't got time for that.

* * *

 **Chapter 1: The Vampire Finds His Friend (Again)**

 **Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia**

"Dr Magnus, I presume?"

Helen Magnus turned quickly on her heel to see a familiar face.

"Ah, but you're no Henry Morton Stanley," she deadpanned.

"Yes, well, even Henry Morton Stanley wasn't Henry Morton Stanley, but actually one John Rowlands."

"Nikola Tesla, I haven't seen you since the inception of my newest Sanctuary—five years ago." She crossed her arms and looked him in the eye.

"I know. I meant to send a fruit basket but I couldn't find anyone to deliver underground."

She was all steel, standing ramrod straight and unmoving; the sceptical blue eyes she cast on Nikola's tall, thin figure were full of scrutiny. After the demise of the Old City Sanctuary, Helen took her work underground, away from those who would destroy everything she had lived and fought for. Nikola had played an instrumental part in the decimation of the old life and the creation of the new.

Then he'd disappeared.

His sudden reappearance was suspicious at best.

"What do you want, Nikola?" It was best to cut to the chase with Nikola, lest one get lost in his wordplay and quips. And Helen was never one to let unruly vampires with magnetic tendencies and occasional histrionics circumvent important questions with frivolity.

"Who says I want anything?" he asked in mock disbelief, appearing shocked that such an insulting question could ever pass through the esteemed doctor's lips. "I must say, however, that it was extremely difficult to track you down. You don't come to the surface all that often. I tried checking Twitter to see how you've been, but didn't see any Tweets from you."

"I don't use Twitter."

"You mean I've been baring my soul to Twitter User 'DrHelenMagnus' and it's not even you? I feel cheated." He sighed in an exaggerated, put-out fashion, "Would it hurt for you to at least use Facebook to keep in touch with your friends? Old people everywhere use it now. Upload some pics of the Abnormals, take some Buzzfeed quizzes—I know you're just dying to figure out which Buffy character you are—maybe change your cover photo to you wearing that pale blue negli—"

"Nikola," she cut him off warningly with a glare to punctuate the fact that her patience was becoming alarmingly low.

"All I'm saying is I know you're old, but you could use an alias and ask Henry to update your status if all this technology eludes you…"

Without another word, she yanked her purse strap up her shoulder, turned, and began to walk away, her heels beating an angry cadence against the sidewalk.

"Helen, wait!" He jogged after her, a bit more sober and aware of the fact that Helen didn't care about his verbal bulwarks.

She suddenly whisked around, walking slowly backward as he walked toward her. "Nikola, I don't have time for this. You disappear for five years—"

"For good reason!"

"You don't keep in touch, either. No phone calls no emails—"

"There are reasons for that!"

"And I'm not even sure I care. The only time you ever come around is when you want something."

He knew it was true. He only sought Helen out when he was in trouble or needed something. She'd always taken him in, given him refuge (with a large dose of flack, but still). Helen Magnus was a very giving and forgiving woman with an infinite amount of patience, but in Nikola Tesla, she inexplicably found those qualities had acquired limits.

"I know. Helen, I know." Desperation was encroaching. He didn't do desperation very well. It was extremely unattractive.

"How did you even find me?"

Helen still had to be exceptionally cautious when she came to the surface. Though most of her detractors had moved on to different things, there was still the occasional rogue that tried to take her out. So far, though, the score was Helen Magnus 5.5 and Rogues 0. The .5 was for the rogue left in a catatonic state after being stunned by a weapon of Henry's creation. He'd warned her that it was still in a very experimental phase of development, but she was left with very little choice when out of nowhere the rogue attacked her along a deserted trail in the Black Forest. She was truly sorry it had to come to that, but she lost a day of hunting luminescent pixies and had to stitch up a nasty gash on her leg without anesthesia.

"I tracked your phone. Which was very hard to do with all the protections Heinrich put on it, but in certain spots, your signal is stronger than others. And the signal was stronger at certain times, which I then ascertained meant that you were above ground. Then I noticed a pattern in the strength of said signal. Once every three months. I tracked you to this precise location. But don't worry. You're still safe from those who would like nothing more than to do you in and find your secret lair. I found you simply because I'm a genius."

He thought he detected a flicker of amusement in the corners of her mouth and in the crinkles around her eyes; or maybe he was just willing it to be there. He'd wanted to see the Helen from another time that day. This Helen had lost so much. Though things seemed to be going well for her, she'd had several things forcibly wrenched from her in so few years—her daughter, the Old City Sanctuary, Bigfoot, James… He felt a little guilty for essentially abandoning her at a time she might've needed him the most. Going underground was the logical response to the anti-Abnormal sentiment that had been spreading across the globe; it didn't mean she wouldn't have found it a difficult transition to make.

"Are you going to answer my original question or not?"

She certainly wasn't going to let it go. He'd have to explain himself. Not that he wasn't planning to explain himself, but he'd hoped they'd banter first, for old time's sake.

"Fine. I'll answer any question you have, but in private away from prying ears. I won't have my reputation sullied by rumours that I have been given to feelings and emotions." He looked around distrustfully at passersby. "Oh, and I'll need wine."

"Of course," she said as she rolled her eyes. "Where are you staying?"

"Nowhere good. Let's go to your place."

"Nikola…"

"What? I'll explain about that, too." He stuck his hands in his pockets as they walked side-by-side down the street.

* * *

 **End Notes:** *"Dr Magnus, I presume" is a spin on the eternally famous line uttered by Henry Morton Stanley when he found Dr Livingstone after searching several months for him.


	2. The Vampire Tells His Story

**Chapter 2: The Vampire Tells His Story**

"You entered a Tibetan monastery?" If Helen could raise her eyebrows any further, they would've disappeared into her dark hair. She looked at the two empty wine bottles littering the coffee table wondering if it had any effect on Nikola's truth telling abilities, but then remembered that he was incapable of getting drunk. It would have been more believable if he'd told her he'd been shacking up with a blond in a fashionable penthouse in some random European city.

"Affirmative."

"I never took you for the religious type," she mused thoughtfully, sipping her tea.

"I'm not. I wanted a place with a view and I just so happened to find a quaint little set up in the Himalayas."

"You gate-crashed a monastery for the view?" It was a little scandalous, even for Nikola. Helen was torn; was this a moment that deserved an "of course", or was a "really?" more apropos?

"No, I gate-crashed for the solitude. It wasn't even technically gate-crashing. I knocked, they opened the door, and I walked in."

"Nikola…" Helen used the tone of censure that frequented conversations between them.

"What? It's not like they asked me to leave! Not until the end, anyway."

"What on earth were you doing in a monastery?"

It really was an unlikely combination. Of all places Nikola Tesla would go, a place of worship would be the last place anyone would expect to find him.

"Believe it or not, nearly destroying the world with one's own invention leaves scars. Deep scars," he sniffed.

"I don't believe you."

He poured himself another glass of wine and seemed to ponder the contents of his glass before continuing. "My invention helped SCIU virtually destroy the Sanctuary and nearly destroy civilisation. I felt it necessary to reflect upon these…errors in judgment. I do have a conscience, you know."

"I'm sceptical of this delayed formation of a conscience." She pursed her lips and set her cup on its saucer.

"And that's what I like about you," he grinned. "Scientist to the core. Sceptical until the evidence supports your hypothesis." He scooted closer to her and wriggled his eyebrows suggestively. "Would you like to go on a fact-finding mission?"

"Nikola!" She pushed him away from her and promptly stood, leaving him to sit by himself on the couch. "That's enough. I didn't bring you here to drink all the wine."

"Maybe I'm drinking my problems." He sighed and sat his glass on the coffee table next to her teacup and saucer. "Which doesn't make any sense because I can never drink enough to actually make them go away. Being a vampire isn't always glitter and rainbows."

The vampire did seem rather melancholic, but Helen wasn't sure if it was because he was truly sorry about the destruction he had been capable of delivering into the wrong hands or if it was something else exasperatingly trite, as was his usual. With Nikola, it was so hard to tell.

"Maybe you should tell me why you're here and why you tracked me down." She was being firm, leaving no room to entertain Nikola's frippery.

"I'm trying. You keep interrupting with questions."

"They're good questions. Questions anyone would ask of a friend who disappeared for five years and then found out he'd spent it at a monastery, of all places."

"I didn't spend the whole time at the monastery," he scoffed.

"Oh?"

"I was caught with an iPod after about six weeks and was very rudely escorted off the premises. Apparently you can't reach enlightenment listening to the Sex Pistols. I ended up going home with the Sherpa who took me down the mountain."

"Oh dear Lord." Helen's hand went to her hip and she turned away, shutting her eyes to gather some patience and clarity. It was like a _Monty Python_ sketch; the story was becoming more convoluted the more Nikola talked.

"You know, you're being very impolite."

"Am I?" she snapped, very impolitely.

He ignored that and proceeded with his story.

"I eventually discovered the Sherpa's name was Ang and we lived together in his house in Bhutan. I don't think he knew how to ask me to leave. It was a little awkward at first. He didn't know any English and I didn't know a word of Sherpa. I learned, eventually. I became fluent in Sherpa in just 60 days. Of course, I am a genius."

"That's impressive," she remarked.

"It is. One day, I was feeling lonely and bitter thinking, 'What am I doing with my life?' I'm hiding out with Sherpas, and why?"

"I would like to know the answer to that question, as well," Helen said, her patience waning.

"Guilt. Everything I'd done had finally caught up to me."

"You want me to believe that you feel guilty? For _everything_ you've ever done?"

Nikola paused. "Well, not everything. Only the big things, like nearly wiping out civilisation, not bitch-slapping Edison while I had the chance… I do not regret, however, the many hours I've spent staring at your enticing figure—"

When her eyes narrowed in a glare, he abruptly stopped that line of thought.

"I am capable of feeling guilt," he added defensively.

"I've yet, in all the years we've known one another, to see you act remorseful for anything you've done. You tried to kill me in the catacombs of Rome and I received not as much as an apology from you."

"Admittedly, I wasn't myself at the time."

"Oh, I think you were very much yourself."

Nikola sat up, perched on the edge of the sofa cushion, he elbows on his knees. "Ok, look, I'm trying to tell you that I reached some kind of realisation during my self-imposed exile."

She looked like she was trying not to burst out laughing. "You found enlightenment?"

"I hate that word, but yes. Something like that. I stayed in the Sherpa village in Bhutan and taught seven-year olds to appreciate the complexities of science and engineering."

"You taught children?" Everyone knew Nikola loathed children. He barely had any good things to say about adults; it was unfathomable that he voluntarily insert himself into a situation that involved several miniature humans with their childish noises and needs.

"I thought it was an appropriate punishment."

"So you spent five years teaching children in Bhutan?" For a moment, Helen wondered if Nikola had suffered some sort of breakdown. It also crossed her mind that he was lying. It would not surprise her to discover that he'd been hiding out somewhere making plans for world domination all this time.

"No. I spent a year there, then let my sense of adventure take me south to India. I've always wanted to go there on an extended holiday. But because of my low funds, I had to do the unthinkable; I backpacked." He said it with such disgust that it made Helen laugh.

"How common of you," she said, greatly amused.

"I like to think of it as a purging of the soul. It is the only way I can come to terms with living the life of a philistine without inducing panic attacks. Backpacking, hitchhiking…though I did get to ride a motorcycle; that was cool."

"What did you do in India?" she asked, trying to urge him along.

"I taught people science—children and adults, whomever wanted to learn. I went from village to village teaching people physics, astronomy, biology, geology—you name it, I taught it."

"Your penance?"

"Another loathsome term," he winced. "I travelled around India, Pakistan, and Nepal during the remainder of the time. I discovered that I really love naan and that I have exceptional skills as a snake charmer."

It was a lot to digest. The story was incredulous, at best. The man who had never been known to have any scruples about anything spent five years in Asia teaching science out of guilt? He must want something; he must be building up her sympathies to ask something of a ridiculous nature in return.

"All right, what do you want, Nikola? You must want something or you wouldn't have gone to all the trouble of tracking me here."

"Well, there is something…"

"I knew it." She threw her hands on her hips.

"You don't even know what I'm about to ask! … By the way, you're beautiful when you're exasperated."

"Nikola…get out."

"Helen, wait," he hesitates. "I'm broke; I have nowhere else to turn. Can I stay at the Sanctuary?"


End file.
